Day 5 – Disney Hollywood Studios
At this stage we have the early morning routine sorted and to be perfectly honest it does make for the best way to see the parks during the busy season. They are not crowded at all, can get onto whatever ride you want without major lines forming. All in all a good thing!
Image via Wikipedia Today is Disney Hollywood Studios or MGM Studios as it used to be known. We like this park! First things first, this is where Playhouse Disney Live on Stage is, if you have a young child you’ll know what this means Mickey Mouse clubhouse, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins etc! This is the must see show for our 4 year old, we could miss anything else but not this. So once in the park, check out the show times and arrange everything else around it! We decided on the 9:40 show (it lasts for 22 minutes) which gave us enough time to pop down to Rock n Roller Coaster.
Rock n Roller Coaster is the second fastest ride in WDW, Test Track being the faster. Description of the site from Disney is “Aerosmith’s having a backstage party across town and you’re invited. Ready to brave the LA freeways? Zoom from 0-60 mph with the force of a supersonic F-14, take in high-speed loops and turns synchronized to a specially recorded Aerosmith soundtrack and zip through Tinseltown in the biggest, loudest limo you’ve ever seen. ” It’s brilliant! Fantastic ride and even better it has a single rider line which means you can skip the line even at the busiest times you’ll wait no more than 10 mins to get on. Another tip, when you get into the preshow room go stand beside the door on the left, that is the exit into the “loading” area.
Time came to get back to PlayHouse Disney, no FastPasses for this so you need to ensure you line up reasonably early, 10-15 minutes before start should be enough, it takes quite a large crowd. During the show you get Mickey and Friends, Handy Manny and his Tools, My Friends Tigger and Pooh and last but by no means least Little Einsteins. You are sitting on the floor so be prepared, although there are a small number of benches at the sides away from the stage. This is a good laugh, good story with singing and dancing for all! 22 minutes of pure fun.
As a side note, Handy Manny does a Character photo op outside at the character location.
We next headed up to Star Tours, this is a Star Wars themed ride, nice, getting a tad old, needs some updating but enjoyable. If into STAR WARS try to get to Studios on a Star Wars weekend. All things Star Wars, autographs, characters, even Storm Troopers gaurding the entrance when you arrive.
Toy Story Mania is new ride, added as the Pixar story becomes more and more part of Disney. This ride is a moving target shooting game, where you are “firing” your shooter at 3-d targets. A great game, lasts 5 minutes and loads of fun. Make sure to Fast Pass it as soon as you can as the queues get very very long for this one.
Muppet Vision 3d is another great show, always go to see it! Has Kermit, Miss Piggy and all my favourites. Al’s Toy Barn is close by which is the spot to catch Woody & Buzz for photos
Lunch time called, we just happened to be walking past Hollywood & Vine and were feeling rather warm so a cool air-con lunch sounded like a plan. So on the off chance there were seats available we checked! There was. Excellent! We’ve found this to be quite true of most places that they do actually have seats available, maybe with a little wait. We had not planned on this one so we wandered in and found that it was actually a character dining at lunch (breakfast too but not dinner) and it was Little Einsteins and Jo Jo! Our 4 year went nuts!! He loved it! It may be $25/adult, $15/child but so so worth it.
On our way out we went back to Rock n’ Roller Coaster and also the The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror This is 13 storeys of scare factor, you are seating in a “phantom” elevator which shoots up 13 storeys and then drops all the way down and back up again. When you enter this park you can hear screams, they are from here and they are live, no recordings needed. This ride has gotten much better over the years, its typically 3 drops can be 4 but each drop will be of different distance and each experience is different.
Love this park, we did more and we will be back on another day on this holiday, but now time for some pool time, dinner and then some “relaxation” time in Downtown Disney or more commonly referred to as “retail” therapy…
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Day 4 – Animal Kingdom
Yikes! It was a hot day today. 94 and counting.
We made our usual early start and got over to Animal Kingdom just after it opened. Even at this hour Animal Kingdom was crowded. It is a very different experience than that at the other Disney Theme parks, smaller roads, not as smooth underfoot and somewhat difficult to navigate with a stroller.
Image by malweth via Flickr Did the “Kilimanjaro Safaris” first, if its hot the animals take shelter so best to get to see them first thing in the morning so head straight for here first. Actualy got to see quite a few and even had a Lion up close (well he was behind a ditch and various other barriers but close enough to get a good view. Worth seeing, plus its kinda educational!
Character greeting spots, best place to go to is the “Camp Minnie-Mickey Greeting Trails”, we skipped that here, the queues were quite bad.
Kali River Rapids was our next stop, be prepared to get very wet! Great fun! Basically a raft ride down over rapids with water gushing everywhere. Plus there are spots along the way where folk get to squirt water at you! A word of caution, if you do this when it is not so warm, you should either bring a change of clothes or wear a rain jacket as you really do get quite wet.
Expedition Everest up next! Best thing about this ride, for us, was the Single Rider Line. Normal queue was over an hour, fastpass was gone very quickly but on single rider line, you walked up, waited 5 mins max and on you get! It is a fantastic roller coaster, really worth it.
After a while in the heat in Animal Kingdom you will begin to notice a difference to the other parks, there are not as many opportunities to get out of the heat and into a air conditioned environment. We found it tough going with out son, who was begining to get quite frazzeled so we decided to head for the exit.
Along the way we got on TriceraTop Spin which himself loved and there was various other “arcade” games which we spent some time at but then hot the exit. Not my most favourite of parks and the heat really killed it for us on this day, didn’t get to do “Its tough to be a bug” (excellent but a little scary for young kids) Finding Nemo – The musical (again supposed to be excellent) and various other shows and animal “petting” etc.
Maybe next year if it is somewhat cooler but this heat was a killer and all we could think of was getting back to the villa and jumping into the pool!
That evening we headed to Downtown Disney, dinner at WolfGang Puck Express (really nice and efficient), spent some time wandering around the shops and then a stop at Ghiradelli’s for my wife and son to indulge in their ice cream heaven while watching the little girls coming and going from Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. I headed over to the Pin Trading stations, always fascinated by this and the wonderful range of pins available and the enthusiasm of the collectors and then to Goofys Candy shop my indulgence! Jelly Belly!
Day 3 Kennedy Space Centre
Image via Wikipedia Two days of disney and time for a break. Our son is fascinated by rockets, spaceships, astronauts etc. so time for a break from Disney and we head over to Kennedy Space Center.
KSC is about 45-50 miles from Orlando, took us over 1hr to get there with traffic & roadworks etc $38/adult, $28/child full information here
Quite a few static rockets and exhibits, the Shuttle Launch experience is somewhat interesting but if you are looking for an exhiting “thrill” then skip it…
The Imax movies we had to skip as it soon became apparent that trying to keep our 4 yr old quiet on this particualr day was not going to be easy, but they are rather fantastic movies.
Kennedy Space Center bus tour is worth going on,. We didn’t do it this time, but you do get to see a Saturn V up close and personal and the International Space centre components.
To catch the tour, all the movies and see all the various exhibits you need the best part of a day. If you are interested in Space, exploration etc then go other wise skip.
Animal Kingdom tomorrow, bright and early once again!
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